Salmonella Outbreak Could Have Been Avoided

by Leslie Pariseau, Posted Aug 24th 2010 @ 12:00PM

In May, salmonella cases related to contaminated eggs began to mount across the country and continue to grow today. At the center of this outbreak, the United States Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) and the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.), two overlapping yet disparately tasked entities, were responsible for the overseeing of this food system.

As of July 9, the U.S.D.A. and the F.D.A. began to jointly oversee egg manufacturers including food safety inspections, but prior to the outbreak, the two institutions monitored entirely different sectors of egg production. Before the new standards, the U.S.D.A. took responsibility for the inspection of chickens and their living conditions, whereas the F.D.A. surveyed chicken feed and the eggs produced. Somewhere between the two, something slipped through the cracks.

Aimed to prevent such large scale outbreaks, the F.D.A. and U.S.D.A. will now both oversee egg production, which will "prevent each year approximately 79,000 cases of foodborne illness and 30 deaths caused by consumption of eggs contaminated with the bacterium Salmonella Enteritidis," according to the U.S.D.A. If successful, this would be a nearly 60 percent reduction in egg-related salmonella illnesses.

Thus far, two major egg producers have issued a national voluntary egg recall, including Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, both of Iowa and both suspected sources for the contaminated egg inventory. In a television interview on August 22, commissioner of the F.D.A., Margaret Hamburg, expressed suspicion that these farms were not in compliance with F.D.A. Standards. Whether through oversight or a gap in evaluation between the two agencies, the fact remains that both failed to prevent such missteps before contaminated eggs reached consumers.

Upon the new ruling on July 9, Hamburg expressed confidence in the renewed food safety framework: "Preventing harm to consumers is our first priority. Today's action will help prevent thousands of serious illnesses from Salmonella in eggs."

Filed Under: Health & Medical, News, Recalls
Tags: eggs, fda, salmonella, usda

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

8-24-2010 @12:15PM Samuel said... Most of these food recalls CAN be avoided most likely. People just need to keep things CLEAN! Like the simple task of washing your hands can make such a difference. See what I mean at http://bit.ly/washyourhands If people just used soap and water and dried well. The site is even giving away FREE soap to encourage hand washing.
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8-24-2010 @4:12PM Erika said... I have yet to see a story about the egg recall mention that chickens can be vaccinated against salmonella. The salmonella vaccine program has been wildly successful in the UK. Why isn't this being done in the US?
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8-25-2010 @8:14PM Pam said... The real reason there are so many food recalls is that the living conditions for animals are horrific. They cram 100 chickens into a space that 20 or fewer should inhabit, and then a certain proportion of these get sick and die and are not cleaned out of the pen right away. The toxic runoff from processing the animals contaminates the food going to market. Rather than adulterating our food with more antibiotics or irradiating it and destroying most of the nutrients, they should address these conditions.
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8-25-2010 @8:19PM Pam said... The DVD Food, Inc. is a great documentary that talks about this problem among several other issues related to how our food is grown and processed. It's fascinating, especially since a lot of what is in there is not common knowledge. You will probably be as surprised as I was at what goes on behind the scenes.
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8-25-2010 @9:48PM Bev said... Why is the simplest solution always overlooked? Get rid of the big factory farms and Big Ag fields in the midwest. Small, local is the way to go. We have lost control of our food system yet it gets no publicity. Tea-baggers are too busy diverting everyone's attention away from the important issues with propaganda.
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